PROGRESS AND PROCESS EVALUATION

PROGRESS MONITORING AND PROGRAM and PROCESS EVALUATION

AT

VERGENNES UNION HIGH SCHOOL

(Prepared by: Ed Webbley, Peter Reynolds, Tom O’Brien, and Carol Spencer)

The Pros and Cons of Continuing to Hire the Services of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges:

Pros of Maintaining a Membership in NEASC

Being an ‘accredited’ high school is an idea embedded in community members’ values and ideas about VUHS.
Parents believe that college admission is related to VUHS “accreditation” status.
Having an external team of teacher volunteers who are peers come in to look at VUHS programs has the potential to point out weak areas that may not be obvious, that can then become topics for conversation, planning and improvement.
Having an external organization confer an official set of ‘recommendations’ can help the community to recognize and act on costly items that might not otherwise receive the attention they need (i.e. renovating the building, installing a computer lab, hiring a guidance counselor.)

Cons of Maintaining a Membership in NEASC

The NEASC criteria are general in nature. They are organized by single categories, rather than integrated or cross-function. The categories do not inform many of our specific programs, resources and services. (See Appendix V)
The NEASC evaluation process is based on inputs (what is your math curriculum), rather than on results (how do the various sub-groups within your school perform on local and standardized math tests?)
Our inquiries about the second purpose of NEASC membership – to document that we met NEASC criteria, and are ‘accredited,’ – yielded consistent information that colleges do not consider a high school’s regional affiliation or ‘accreditation’ when admitting or rejecting a student.
The last NEASC evaluation report was lackluster at best. It lacked specificity in its recommendations and explanations. Despite repeated efforts to contact the team’s chair to acquire the specifics, no help was forthcoming. The volunteer team comes together for 3 days, and then disbands. For the most part, the recommendations were not useful. They were not ‘value added.’ The process cost $10,000, and for the most part did not provide any new information. Our annual membership is$2,500.
We are a small school. The self evaluation process NEASC requires, involves all 7 -12 staff, ALL of our Wednesday meeting time (about 30 hours total for one year), and all 5 of the 9 professional development days. Participating in the early 2000’s meant stopping all ongoing development work, to create reports for the visiting team.
The 2011 NEASC revised criteria (Appendix V), along with Vermont School Quality Standards, are cross referenced with the High Schools on the Move evaluation rubric, and are both public documents. We can make use of the criteria as guidelines in adapting the HSOM standards we see as more directly relevant to our work. (Appendix VII)
NEASC processes do not help us at all with our annual required assessment of the 10 required components of Title I, the 8 progress reports for Adequate Yearly Progress, or the annual School Quality Standards reporting and work. We also report annually to the College Board, providing detailed syllabi for our AP courses. Taken together, these measures already provide a source of external, objective measurement that used to be provided solely by NEASC.

Background Information About VUHS’ Membership in NEASC

The NEASC website indicates that VUHS joined NEASC in 1959. It was not until the 1980’s however, that VUHS participated in the full review process. On file are reports from 1991 and 2002.

From 2000 to 2002, the greater VUHS community actively participated in the 10 year review process with staff and volunteers from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. VUHS staff had released time 4 times each year until the work was completed. The result was a thick notebook of data produced by the VUHS staff, and a 65 page report received from the NEASC visiting team of teacher volunteers in October, 2002. During this time, the VUHS addition and renovation were completed. Because of the attention devoted to the new building, most of the program aspects of the NEASC report were put on hold. Peter Coffey left in the spring of 2004. Sandy Bassett became the interim principal in 2004-2005. Ed Webbley and Manya Butenneff were in place in 2005-2006. Peter Reynolds came in 2006-2007. The succession of new hires in the administrative positions delayed the VUHS response to the NEASC recommendations. However, work on the recommendations in the report began with Ed Webbley’s arrival in 2005.

Ed Webbley sought not only to guide the faculty towards meeting the NEASC recommendations, but also to address numerous problematic aspects of the VUHS programs that he understood to underlie the problems pointed out in the report. Additionally, the new principal found a school that undervalued one of its greatest assets: its own students. He began to raise the critical question of how to strengthen the academic programs and to ensure that a higher percentage of students went on to post secondary education. In a meeting with the district administrators in December, 2005, Mr. Webbley outlined the following points about continuing to make use of the NEASC program criteria to guide VUHS growth and improvements, or to select a more student-centered model: